HISTORY 101:
AMERICAN HISTORY TO THE CIVIL WAR ERA
DRAFT SYLLABUS
Professor Gloria Whiting | [email protected] | 5108 Mosse Humanities Building
Office Hours: Tuesdays 12:45-2:45 PM and by appointment
This 1773 watercolor
of French slave ship La
Marie-Séraphique in
Cap Francais, Saint
Domingue (Haiti),
shows an iron barrier
separating slaves for
purchase on the front of
the ship from
Europeans picnicking
on the back. This
course will help you
understand how people
who have not usually
been considered
integral to American
history—such as AfroHaitian slaves—
fundamentally shaped
the mainland American
colonies and the early
United States. Source:
Musee du Chateau des
Ducs de Bretagne,
Nantes, France.
Published in Madeline
Burnside ed., Spirits of
the Passage (New York,
1977), 124.
Course Description
This course will ask surprising questions. How did Haitian slaves, Aztec gold, and the humble potato
influence the history of the region that would become the United States? Because they did—
profoundly.
This may not be the sort of history you learned in high school. Traditionally, historians have understood
the history of early America or colonial America as the history of the thirteen colonies that joined to
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create the United States in the American Revolution. But such an approach severs these colonies from
their context and creates an affinity between them that did not exist prior to the Revolutionary era.
Our course will take a much broader view. We will situate these thirteen colonies in the framework of
the Atlantic world: the world created by Africans, Europeans, and American Natives from the sixteenth
century—when European expansion into the Atlantic basin began in earnest—through the American
Revolution, when the thirteen colonies united in a revolt against Britain. This revolt would usher in an
era of state-building in the Atlantic and signal the beginning of the end of Europe’s imperial power in
the Americas. Together we will explore how people, pathogens, plants, animals, labor systems, ideas,
technologies, and institutions across a vast geographic expanse shaped the history of the thirteen
colonies that created the United States of America, and then influenced the nation’s early development.
Objectives:
I have four main objectives for this course. The first is content-based, and the latter three more
process-based:
1. I want you to understand how the early American colonies developed in the context of a rich
and interconnected world centered on the Atlantic Ocean; how those colonies created the
United States; and how tensions in the nation’s early history ultimately led to the Civil War.
2. History 101 is an introduction to a time and a place—early America—but it is also an
introduction to a particular field of inquiry: History. I want you to understand how historians
make history. How do we know what we know about the past? Why do our understandings of
the past change over time?
3. This objective follows from the prior one. I want you to practice doing what historians do:
asking questions about the past and answering them using primary sources. There’s no reason
why you can’t start doing that this semester, even if this is your very first history course at UW.
4. Finally, I want you to become captivated by the past. I’ll do my best this semester to help you
envision times and places so unfamiliar to you that you cultivate a deep fascination with worlds
beyond your own. History should never be boring!
Format:
This course will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays for lecture (11:00 – 12:15 AM in Humanities 1121).
In addition, discussion sections will be held once a week. Lectures and discussions are designed to build
on each other, not replicate each other, so attending both is vital—and required.
Reading:
Your reading assignment each week will consist of both primary sources (documents—such as letters,
petitions, and memoirs—that were written during the years we are studying) and secondary sources
(documents that were written by historians in later years and usually rely on primary sources).
Readings average approximately 45 pages per week: 35 pages of secondary sources, and 5 to 10 pages
of primary sources. This may not sound like very much reading, but you should be prepared to spend a
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significant amount of time analyzing the few short primary sources that are assigned each week; it is
much more difficult to read and interpret primary sources than secondary sources!
There is one required text for this course: Alan Taylor’s American Colonies: The Settling of North America.
(Penguin Books, 2002). All other readings will be available in our course reader. Both the Taylor text
and the course reader will be on reserve in College Library.
Computer Policy:
I ask that you refrain from using computers during lecture. The temptation to get distracted by things
that are not related to class is simply too great. I promise that you’ll get far more out of this course if
you use just a pen and a pad of paper. Cell phones should be silenced and put away. (If you are a
McBurney student who needs accommodation, please come talk to me.)
Disability Statement:
UW-Madison supports the right of all enrolled students to a full and equal educational opportunity.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Wisconsin State Statute (36.12), and UW-Madison policy
(Faculty Document 1071) require that students with disabilities be reasonably accommodated in
instruction and campus life. Reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities is a shared
faculty and student responsibility. If you need accommodations, please let me know by the end of the
third week of the semester, or as soon as possible after a disability has been incurred or recognized. I
will work either directly with you or in coordination with the McBurney Center to identify and provide
reasonable instructional accommodations. Disability information, including instructional
accommodations as part of a student’s educational record, is confidential and protected under the
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Academic Integrity:
UW-Madison takes academic integrity very seriously, and no academic misconduct will be tolerated in
this course. Academic misconduct can assume many forms, so make sure you know what it is and how
to avoid it. (See https://www.students.wisc.edu/doso/academic-integrity/)
Grading Scale:
A (92.5+); AB (87.5-92.4); B (82.5-87.4); BC (77.5-82.4); C (69.5-77.4); D (60-69.4); F (Below 60)
Illness Policy:
I get it—we all come down with something from time to time. But if you desire accommodations due
to illness, you must have a note from a medical professional. So please remember to ask whoever treats
you (nurse, doctor, etc.) for one.
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Requirements:
Discussion section attendance and participation: 25%
Please come to section ready to engage with the material, your peers, and your TA. You will
regularly be asked to complete a short assignment prior to section and upload it to your
section’s Learn@UW discussion board. Thoughtful completion of these assignments will
contribute to your discussion section grade.
Lecture attendance and participation: 10%
Lectures won’t be 75-minute monologues; you will be involved in what goes on in our
classroom—sometimes through group work, sometimes through sharing your insights with the
class. You therefore must consistently be present and willing to play an active role in your own
learning.
Map quiz: 10%
This course works on a broad geographical canvas that includes Europe, Africa, and the
Americas. In order to understand the developments we are studying, you must have a good
sense of what happened where.
Check-In Quizzes: 30%
In lieu of a final exam, this course will have five low-stakes “check-in quizzes” (each valued at
6% of your final grade). If you attend lecture and section regularly, read the assigned material,
take good notes, and review those notes well (preferably with a classmate), you should do well
on these. These quizzes will be given every three weeks.
Source Analysis (2 pages): 10%
In this analysis of a primary source, you will think about who created the source you are
examining and for what purpose; what the source can tell us about the past; and how the source
relates to the other primary and secondary sources assigned that week. Doing this thoughtfully
will refine your ability to evaluate, interpret, and use new information: skills that are crucial
not only for historians but for people in just about every profession.
Midterm paper (4-5 pages): 15%
Your midterm paper will give you an opportunity to look closely at two of the colonies we
examine in the “Building Colonies” section of the course. Using primary and secondary sources,
you will develop an argument that explains the similarities and differences between the
colonies. We will be working on the skills you need to do well on this paper throughout the
course.
Course Schedule:
PART I: SEAFARING, CONQUERING, PLANTING
Week 1: Overview of the Course **No section this week**
Jan. 17 Introducing the Course
Jan. 19 Before 1492: Indigenous America
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Week 2: Iberian Expansion and Conquest, 1400-1600 **Section begins**
Jan. 24 Portugal Begins to Explore: Atlantic Islands
Jan. 26 Spanish Conquest in America
Readings:
Alan Taylor, American Colonies, Introduction
Week 3: Africans in Africa and America, 1400-1700
Jan. 31 Africa, Slavery, and the Beginnings of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Feb. 2 —Quiz 1—Lecture: Surviving the Middle Passage, Making Life in the Americas
Readings:
John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, ch. 6
Steven Mintz, ed., African American Voices, selections:
An Employee of Britain’s Royal African Company Describes the
Workings of the Slave Trade (1738)
Olaudah Equiano, an 11-Year-Old Ibo from Nigeria, Remembers His
Kidnapping into Slavery (1789 account of events of ~1756)
Week 4: Northern Europeans in the Atlantic, 1556-1670
Feb. 7 The French, Dutch, and English Enter the Atlantic
Feb. 9 Corn, Pigs, Microbes, and the Shaping of the Americas
Readings:
Virginia DeJohn Anderson, “King Philip’s Herds: Indians, Colonists, and the
Problem of Livestock in Early New England”
Selections from the Court Records of the Colony of New Plymouth (16521660)
Metacom Relates Indian Complaints about the English Settlers (1675)
PART II: BUILDING COLONIES
Week 5: Greater Virginia
Feb. 14 Virginia’s Beginnings
Feb. 16 Case Studies: Pocahontas and Antonio the Negro
Readings:
Alan Taylor, American Colonies, ch. 6 and 7
The First Colonists Arrive at Jamestown (1625 publication describing events of
1606-7)
Captain John Smith Describes Virginia Indian Society (1608)
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Week 6: New England
Feb. 21 Faith, Freedom, Family
Feb. 23 —Quiz 2—Film: We Shall Remain—After the Mayflower
Readings:
Alan Taylor, American Colonies, ch. 8
Winthrop’s Vision of New England (1630)
Anne Hutchinson Challenges Massachusetts Orthodoxy (1767 document
describing 1637 examination)
Week 7: French in America
Feb. 28 New France: A Different Kind of Colony
Mar. 2 Natives in New France
Readings:
Alan Taylor, American Colonies, ch. 5 and 16
Indian Diplomacy in New France (1744 publication describing 1701
negotiations)
A Traveler Describes French Society in St. Lawrence Valley (1771 account
of 1749 observations)
Week 8: The Anglo-Caribbean Colonies
Mar. 7 —Source Analysis Due—Lecture: Sugar and Slaves
Mar. 9 Film: Sugar Dynasty
Readings:
Alan Taylor, American Colonies, ch. 10
A Portrait of Barbados (1657)
Pirates of the Caribbean (1678)
Week 9: Carolinas
Mar. 14 Founding a Caribbean Colony on the Mainland
Mar. 16 —Quiz 3—Lecture: Black Rice: Crop, Labor, and Culture in the Carolinas
Readings:
Alan Taylor, American Colonies, ch. 11
A Missionary Discusses Christianity and Slavery (1712-1714)
A Description of Eighteenth-Century South Carolina (1763)
Spring Recess: March 18-26
PART III: REVOLUTIONARY REORGANIZATIONS
Week 10: The Seven Years’ War in the Atlantic World
Mar. 28 George Washington’s Blunder, World War, and “Peace”
Mar. 30 Two Wars for Independence
Readings:
TBA
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Week 11: Revolution in North America
Apr. 4 Faithful Islands, Rebellious Mainland
Apr. 6 —Midterm Paper Due—Lecture: The Farmers, the Framers, and the Constitution
Readings:
Linda Kerber, ed., Women’s America: Refocusing the Past, 7th edition, selections:
Annette Gordon-Reed, “The Hemings-Jefferson Treaty: Paris, 1789”
Linda K. Kerber, “The Republican Mother and the Woman Citizen:
Contradictions and Choices in Revolutionary America”
“The ladies going about for money exceeded everything…” (1780)
Rachel Wells, “I have Don as much to Carrey on the Warr as maney…”
(1786)
Week 12: The Global American Revolution
Apr. 10 Revolution in France and its Empire
Apr. 13 Overthrow of Slavery in Haiti
Readings:
Laurent Dubois and John Garrigus, Slave Revolution in the Caribbean: A Brief
History with Documents, part 1 (pp. 7-42), and selections from part 2:
The Code Noir (1685)
Antoine Dalmas, History of the Revolution of Saint-Domingue (1814)
SECTION 4: THE UNITED STATES
Week 13: The Early American Republic
Apr. 18 —Quiz 4—Lecture: Liberty in Haiti, Slavery in the Early American Republic
Apr. 20 Expanding and Securing the Republic
Readings:
Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812, Introduction
Sean Wilentz and Jonathan H. Earle, Major Problems in the Early Republic, 17871848, selections:
Reginald Horsman, “The Improbable American Success”
Gregory Evans Dowd, “The Indian Resistance Crushed”
Felix Grundy Gives the War Hawks’ Battle Cry (1811)
Federalist Daniel Webster Criticizes the War (1812)
Week 14: American Democracy
Apr. 25 Jackson’s Election and the Rise of the “Common Man”
Apr. 27 —Map Quiz—Lecture: Indian Removal
Readings:
Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, ch. 10.
The Cherokee Nation Writes a Memorial (1829)
Andrew Jackson Defends Indian Removal (1830)
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Week 15: America in Crisis
May 2 Migration, the West, and the Sectional Crisis
May 4 Lecture: Bringing Things Together
Readings:
Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
Abraham Lincoln Opposes the Expansion of Slavery (1855)
Charles Sumner Denounces the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1856)
Final “Exam” (ie Quiz 5): To be held during our final exam slot
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